Chapter Twenty Five
Eleanora stared morosely out of the icily frosted window, her brooding features half illuminated by the frigid glow of the corpulent moon which hung pendulously in the inky blackness of the night sky. Shivering, for the night was bitterly cold, she drew her thick blankets up around her bare shoulders, tucking her feet into the rich folds.
What have you done, Nora?
A thousand times she had asked herself this question: A question with no answer, or perhaps too many answers for her to fully comprehend.
She blinked hard, the lustrous visage of the moon imprinted against the darkness of her closed eyes, trying to rid herself of the hopeless feeling that washed over her; wave after unrelenting wave of futility and hollow regret.
Hollow, because even in her wretched mood, she could not convince herself that this was not what she had wanted all along, from the very moment she had first met that fathomless gaze.
The same fathomless gaze that had, not twelve hours ago, sent an electric thrill of desire coursing up her spine as he had stared at her, those obsidian orbs aflame with what she had erroneously believed to be longing.
Her cold cheeks smarting with the febrile flush of embarrassment, she buried her head in her blankets, the wool chafing uncomfortably against her skin as it became sodden with the salty brine of her flowing tears.
* * * * * * * * * *
"Damn," she muttered, setting aside her parchment and glancing around her at the muddled piles of books upon the desk. Running a hand through her knotted hair in frustration, she twisted in her chair.
"Lee?" she called to the tall back boy sitting engrossed in whispered conversation with the Weasley twins in the corner of the common room.
"Yes m'am?" he answered with a grin.
"Do you have the OWL potions textbook handy?" she asked, a wheedling tone creeping into her voice as she smiled apologetically at him.
He unfolded his lean frame out of his chair and ambled over to her, glancing over her shoulder at the parchment, half covered in loose, some might say illegible handwriting.
"Sorry," he said, shrugging ruefully. "I lent it to Angelina. What's the Old Bat set you this time?"
She frowned. "Just an essay on the effects of deadly nightshade."
"What's the problem then?"
She made a face. "I've left my textbook down in the dungeons."
Lee grinned craftily. "Where's Hermione?"
Eleanora smirked back. "Dunno. Best not to push my luck though; she's already saved my neck a few times this week."
Lee perused her essay for a minute, scratching his dreadlocked head.
"I never knew it could do that!" he muttered in a horrified tone of voice.
Eleanora grinned slyly. "You never know, there might be a Weasley's Wizard Wheeze in there!"
He gulped, crossing his legs instinctively. "What would we call it? Perform Your Own Castration Kit?"
Fred and George suddenly stopped their conversation and whipped their head round to stare at Lee who looked rather nauseous.
Laughing at their bewildered expressions, Eleanora skipped towards the portrait hole.
"I'm off to retrieve that book," she called. "If I'm not back before dinner, send out a search party!"
Slamming the portrait hole shut behind her and calling out a cheery greeting to the Fat Lady, Eleanora set off down the corridor, her boots making smart taps on the polished floor.
A chill wind blew in from the narrow windows of the first floor passageways, whistling down the stairwells, and she thrust her hands deep into her pockets, pulling the high collar of her robe up around her face.
Buried in her pocket her hand closed around a piece of crumpled parchment. Pulling it out, she saw that it was the letter that had arrived at breakfast that morning. Already late for her first lesson and fearing the prospect of an angry Professor McGonagall she had quickly scanned the handwriting on the front, and then stuck it in her pocket, not giving it a second thought until now.
Pulling a sticky, half chewed sherbet lemon off one corner of the envelope with a grimace, she ripped it open, unfolding the letter within.
Dear Nora, it read.
I am back in England now – business was wrapped up in quickly in you-know-where. Have been hearing favourable and not so favourable reports of your behaviour from Albus – I know you detest Divination but at least try to stay awake in lessons, otherwise old Sybil will be getting a bad opinion of us D'Souzas, seeing as I used to do exactly the same. Still, as always, do as I say and not as I do.
Will endeavour to visit at mid-term next week all being well and do give my regards to Remus.
Much love,
Papa.
PS. Don't you dare let Snape get the better of you, my girl! On this occasion and only on this occasion I give you permission to use the Tallentalegra curse; not that it will stop him hexing you, but I just think it would be damned amusing to see the greasy git tap-dancing uncontrollably.
Eleanora giggled, the image of a frenetically foot-loose Snape waltzing across her mind. Though, she thought as she walked past the gruesomely deformed stature that concealed the entrance to the Slytherin common room, all jokes aside, the stern professor, with his slender frame and fluid gestures would most likely be a supremely graceful and elegant dance partner. So rapt was she in this thought that she hardly noticed Parvati Patil walking hurriedly towards her, her long braid swinging animatedly behind her.
"Hi!" Parvati greeted, as if glad to see a friendly face in the ominous gloom of the dungeon corridors.
Eleanora smiled warmly at her, stuffing the letter back in her pocket.
"What brings you down here?" asked the pretty Indian girl with a shudder, as she eyed the dark crevices and dismal stonework that surrounded them.
"I left my textbook down in the potions lab this morning," explained Eleanora with a frown. "I'm going to see whether I can get it back without landing a detention."
Parvati's eyes widened. "Good luck," she said, "I heard Snape was in a foul mood this afternoon; he made one of the second years test their potion and it made all their hair fall out!"
Eleanora wrinkled her nose. "He let the second years prepare instant scalping potions?"
"Oh no," replied Parvati, shaking her head. "It was only meant to be a Pepper-Up potion."
"Ouch," muttered Eleanora, for once in her life thankful for her full head of hair.
"If you're not back in half an hour we'll -" Parvati began.
"Send out a search party!" finished Eleanora, laughing.
Bidding farewell to Parvati, she carried on past the numerous locked doors that lined the shadowed corridor, the torches spitting furiously in the damp air.
Rounding the final corner of the long meandering corridor, she was surprised to find the door of the classroom wide open. Peering inside, she saw the classroom was, thankfully, empty. Further scrutiny revealed her neglected book to be lying on Snape's desk, half hidden behind an orderly pile of completed homework assignments.
Glancing furtively around, she snuck into the empty classroom, her ears tuned for any sound of the absent potions master's return. She muffled her slurred curses with her hand as her hip painfully collided with the corner of a workbench, and crept up to the neatly ordered desk, the numerous stacks of books and parchments perfectly aligned with each other.
And the award for the most anally retentive person of the year goes to -, she thought to herself with a smirk, as she carefully avoided disordering the tidy piles. Reaching out for her book, her blood suddenly froze in her veins as she heard the unmistakable sound of Snape's sharp footsteps in the corridor.
Hastily grabbing the book, she whirled round just as he swept through the door, slamming it violently behind him. His long strides had carried him halfway across the room before her saw her standing uneasily behind the desk, and stopped short, evidently taken aback. His cold black eyes flickered momentarily with surprise, then hardened as he frowned at the girl before him.
"What, pray tell, are you doing in my classroom, Miss D'Souza?" His voice was ominously soft; a honey coated knife blade.
Eleanora swallowed hard, willing herself not to lose face in front of the severe professor.
"I came to retrieve my book," she explained in level tones, stepping out from behind the desk.
"Your book?" he repeated silkily, raising an eyebrow questioningly.
"Yes," she replied, pointing to the tome in her hand. "My book."
He sneered at her, stalking round the front row of desks. "I know what a book looks like, Miss D'Souza: I do not require an aide memoire."
Eleanora took a deep breath, sensing a confrontation brewing.
"And do not even think of rolling your eyes at me," he snapped, fixing her with a warning stare.
She snapped her eyes back to meet his gaze, wondering how in Merlin's name he knew her reflexes better then she herself did. She stood under his trenchant stare for a moment, then began to walk slowly towards the door, taking extra care not to trip over anything, for it would be the ultimate worldly injustice to end yet another altercation clumsily sprawled on the floor.
"Do not leave," he commanded sharply, as she neared the door, obviously unwilling to let her escape unscathed. "We have not yet discussed your punishment."
She spun around, eyes blazing. "Punishment?" she echoed incredulously. "What for? I haven't done anything!"
Snape smirked, his lips curling in sardonic amusement. "On the contrary: You first forget your book – that's ten house points lost I think for sheer carelessness, and then wander in here to retrieve it with no regard for locked doors or -"
"The door," corrected Eleanora candidly, "it wasn't locked. It was wide open in fact."
Snape narrowed his eyes at her, and brought a hand to his temple as if trying to remember something. After a moments silence he addressed her again.
"Fine," he retorted waspishly. "The fact still remains that you are in this room without permission. That's another ten house points you've lost."
Eleanora glared at him. Parvati was right, she thought, he really is in a foul mood. But despite her anger at his unwarranted subtraction of house points, she still found herself wondering with some concern the reason for his ill-temper and the pinched, tired look that had overtaken his features since her encounter with him in the Duelling Gallery. He had been noticeably absent from dinner the previous evening, and she had overheard the pug-faced Pansy Parkinson bitterly remark that he had been nowhere to be found when she had gone in search of help with her homework.
Attempting to keep her voice civil she replied. "Well, you weren't here for me to ask permission."
"Do not make me take away another ten points for your impudence, Miss D'Souza," he warned softly.
Biting her lip to prevent all Gryffindor's hard-won points from being instantly wiped with one impertinent remark, she merely held up her hands in a gesture of defeat as something in Snape's expression told her that this was not a battle she could easily win. Waiting for him to stand aside so she could pass, she weighed the cumbersome tome from hand to hand.
"How could you be sure it was your book anyway?" he asked in a dangerous tone.
"Because I doubt that anybody else was forgetful enough to leave their book down here today," she replied, "and I doubt even more that anyone else's book bears a large purple stain on the cover where Lavender spilt her nail polish."
Snape stared at the cover of the volume in her hand as if to verify the existence of the alleged stain.
"You should take better care of your books," he intoned quietly.
Eleanora smiled sarcastically at him, feeling an irresistible taunt rising within her.
"Well, if you'll excuse me, I'll let you get back to tidying your desk; really, it's a wonder how you can find anything in that mess!" She threw an irreverent glance at the impeccably ordered piles.
Snape's nostrils flared in irritation and his lips thinned to a grim line. Before he could take off any more points, Eleanora sidestepped past him, nearly knocking over a desk, which she steadied with her hand, still bearing the shadows of heavy bruising.
Suddenly with lightning like speed, Snape seized her arm in a vice like grip, twisting it upwards for closer inspection. Eleanora cried out in surprise, her eyes wide with alarm.
"I thought I told you to have Madam Pomfry heal this wrist!" he spat angrily, his pale fingers uncomfortably digging into the tender bruised flesh.
"Let go, you're hurting me!" she cried furiously, attempting to pull herself from his clutches, but he was far more powerful than her, despite his lean build and retained his hold with little effort.
"Why did you not obey my orders?" he asked, eyes flashing with displeasure, though he greatly eased his painful grip.
"Because I thought I could do it myself," she replied hotly, ceasing her struggle and glowering at him vehemently.
Snape laughed; a cold, mocking laugh that made the hairs on the back of her stand up in discomfort.
"Yes, I should have thought as much," he sneered, looking down at her with scorn in his eyes. "Why let a trained Medi-witch do the job when you are clearly better qualified?"
Bridling at his overt sarcasm, Eleanora tossed her head, and hissed back. "That's not what I thought!"
"Then please, do enlighten me with whatever preposterous thought it was that possessed you to attempt to heal a broken wrist yourself."
Something within Eleanora snapped; the thin thread that separated the last vestiges of civility from the unchecked anger that now vividly coloured her words.
"If I had gone to Pomfrey with a broken wrist I would have had to invent some story about how I got it and she would have gone running McGonagall, telling her that I had undoubtedly been up to no good again, and I would have been hauled back into her office for another friendly little chat."
She paused for breath, her eyes narrowed with fury, past caring what consequences her outburst might have.
"Either that or I would have had to tell her that it was you who gave me the broken wrist in the first place whilst giving me duelling lessons."
She stopped, a defiant look upon her face. "So, which explanation would you have preferred I use? The one that results in me probably getting expelled or the one that blows your cover?"
She laughed bitterly. "In fact, don't even bother answering that. I think I know whose ass you'd rather-"
But her tirade was cut short by a pair of thin lips pressing down crushingly over her own, reducing her strident invectives to nothing more than breathless whimpers. He buried his hands roughly in her hair, his slim fingers knotting themselves in her haphazard chignon as he tilted her face up, the translucent bows of her eyelids flickering open to meet his penetrating stare, the engulfing blackness of his eyes burning with the same fire that roughly daubed two bands of colour across his gaunt cheeks and coursed under his pallid skin, branding her with the mark of his desire with every touch. Engulfing her mouth with his once again, he parted her lips with a persistent tongue, avariciously biting and sucking at the tender softness of her lower lip. She yielded eagerly to his touch and the forgotten text-book fell loudly to the floor as she ran her hands up the lean plains of his torso, resting her weight against the black clad leg that pressed between her heated thighs, for her own knees felt likely to buckle at any moment with the frenzied abandon of their cinch.
One hand wound its way around the elegant curve of his neck, pulling him closer to her as he explored the warm temple of her mouth with a zealous tongue. Impassioned by the insistent nudge of his arousal against her sensitive core, her tongue met willingly with his, leading him in a sinuous dance of pleasure-pain as her fingernails frenetically scraped down the back of his alabaster neck. He growled ferally into her mouth and bucked himself against her, forcing her back against the edge of the workbench. Gasping with breathless surprise as he hoisted her onto the scrubbed surface, she wound one agile leg around his hips, pulling him unto her as she ground herself against his hardness, relishing his groan of gratification at her forceful touch. His hands roamed untamed over her back, sending electric jolts of sensation coursing throughout her body, speeding through her veins like the most powerful of drugs and he rhythmically thrust against her, eliciting uninhibited moans of pleasure.
Then, as quickly as the ardent embrace had begun, it was over. Snape violently pulled away, tearing his hands from her back, leaving her slumped against the wooden bench, gasping for breath. Her lips were unmistakably swollen, painted a lusty red by the ravaging force of his kiss and her hands trembled as she precariously steadied herself.
His heart hammered deafeningly in his chest, as if pounding a fatal war cry and his groin throbbed with the unappeased desire that still threatened to assail him as he stood staring hungrily at the young woman, her dishevelled hair and glazed expression a testament to the intractable nature of his carnal yearning.
"Go," he commanded her quietly, his voice strained and roughened by his guttural moans.
"What?" she asked confusedly, relinquishing the support of the workbench as she stepped towards him, her face falling as he backed away.
"Go!" he thundered, flinging a tremulous hand towards the door. "Do not make me repeat myself!"
Eleanora's expression snapped from one of faraway bewilderment to one of furious comprehension as all the passion of his unfulfilled lust congealed into resentful wrath. Shooting him a look of pure odium she roughly pushed past him, nearly knocking him off his feet as she half-collided with his shoulder in her haste to escape the forbidding radius of his condemning gaze.
The deafening crash of the door being slammed in unconstrained anger roused Snape from his dazed reverie, and he slowly bent to retrieve the once again forgotten book from the floor by his feet.
It fell open in his hands and he stared at the inscribed bookplate as if seeing for the first time, her name scrawled in that ridiculous magenta ink of hers.
Property of Eleanora D'Souza – paws off!
Then in a different, childish script that he recognised as the infernal Weasley boy's:
Or she'll cast the Curse of the Bogies on you!
Tracing one finger lightly over her loose hand writing, he closed his eyes, craving the anonymous protection that darkness gave. Under the cover of the self-shaped shadows he could forget who, where and what he was, yet he knew with a dull, pounding ache that even in the darkest hovels of denial he would never be able to escape the guilt that now flooded his body like bitterest poison.
He licked his dry lips, reddened and inflamed as hers had been, savouring the flavour of her mouth that still lingered in his own like the pleasant traces of a particularly fine brandy. She had tasted strangely of sherbet lemons, a flavour he usually found abhorrently detestable, more to Albus' dubious tastes than his own, but coupled with the soft warmth of her lips he had found himself fervently craving her sweet essence, possessing her mouth more and more deeply to satisfy his indelible hunger.
Snapping the book shut, he laid it down on the workbench and strode over to his desk, eyeing his painfully neat stacks with some acrimony. Sinking heavily into his chair, he reached into his pocket, pulling out a smartly addressed scroll, tied with the customary black leather thong.
He had been on his way to the Owlery to post this parchment when recollection of another urgent letter to be written had brought him back to his office, finding the girl stood in his classroom; a cruel twist of temptation's leash around his neck. Idly twisting the scroll in his long fingers, he thought of the message inside, the words flitting sharply around his clouded consciousness like bats in the twilight.
Miss D'Souza…………Your second duelling lesson…………Duelling Gallery…………Eight o'clock…………Friday evening…………Practise your shielding spells………….Severus Snape.
Short, curt and wholly appropriate, giving no clue as to the torment he had endured since the last lesson had ended so abruptly. But if that was torment, this was sheer hell.
He had crossed an invisible line that he had no business crossing, prowling in the background for so long, eying the ground suspiciously, all the while hiding behind his empty conviction that he would never allow himself to take those fatal steps, until all at one in an instant of thoughtless abandon, he had cleared the line in one leap, dragging his unfortunate accomplice by the hand into an arena of lies, secrecy and unease.
He raised a hand to massage a hammering temple, catching her elusive scent on the sleeve of his robe, a heady bouquet of patchouli and the pungent undertones of leather and hay, an animalistic smell that he often caught on her during afternoon lessons. The piquant aroma sent his thoughts into an inexorable spin and he whipped his hand away, pushing his chair back against the wall with a resounding crash as he got to his feet abruptly.
Pulling his robes off as he went, letting them fall in graceful puddles on the floor, he made for the hidden bathroom.
He needed a shower. A cold one.